AT&T Wants To Bring Gigabit Internet To 21 U.S. Cities

AT&T is becoming more serious about rivaling Google’s Fiber Internet. On the heels of Google’s Fiber expansion initiative, AT&T on Monday announced big plans to expand its fiber network to 21 major metropolitan areas around the U.S., including Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and San Antonio. The announcement says the 1Gbps Internet will expand to up to 100 candidate cities and municipalities nationwide, which means there’s no guarantee you’ll receive the benefit of the faster Internet. But there’s a good chance you’re on AT&T’s radar.

The plan right now is to work with leaders in these markets to begin discussions about bringing AT&T’s service to these communities. The carrier said that communities willing to invest in the technology can claim first dibs so long as the infrastructure is there.

“We’re delivering advanced services that offer consumers and small businesses the ability to do more, faster, help communities create a new wave of innovation, and encourage economic development,” said Lori Lee, senior executive vice president, AT&T Home Solutions.

Other metropolitan areas of the 21 candidates include Atlanta, Augusta, Charlotte, Cleveland, Fort Worth, Fort Lauderdale, Greensboro, Houston, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Miami, Nashville, Oakland, Orlando, San Antonio, San Diego, St. Louis and San Jose. AT&T’s fiber Internet is currently available to residents in Austin, and will roll out further to those in Dallas, Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem.

Google Fiber is currently more readily available than AT&T’s competing service, though the carrier has some big names in its sights. Of course, none of that will actually matter unless the service actually rolls out to the cities mentioned. However, the race is clearly on, and AT&T has some big plans for the remainder of 2014. Is your area one of the potential metros?